


Hesitate

by The Rose Mistress (Semilune)



Series: "The Bastard and the Hound," or Things Estinien is Terrified Krile Saw via Echo [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Awkward First Times, Awkward Sexual Situations, Awkwardness, Backstory, Best Friends, Blow Jobs, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Bromance, Bromance to Romance, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Constipation, Epic Bromance, Estinien is a mess., First Time, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Mutual Pining, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, Oral Sex, Pining, Porn with Feelings, Pre-ARR, Pre-Calamity, Self-Esteem Issues, Sexual Confusion, commitment issues, implied period-typical homophobia, in a big sense, nervous Ishgardian giraffes, true love but complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 21:10:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21326740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Semilune/pseuds/The%20Rose%20Mistress
Summary: ☾ ✧ ☽Aymeric's face was flushing, hot as a grate full of embers.  “I want it to be you, Estinien,” he muttered, well beneath the veil of his breath.  “You first.  You, before any other—”Luckily, they were alone.  Luckily, because Estinien shouted loud enough to rattle the weapon latched across his back.“You want me to dowhat?”☾ ❅ ☽
Relationships: Aymeric de Borel & Estinien Wyrmblood, Aymeric de Borel/Estinien Wyrmblood
Series: "The Bastard and the Hound," or Things Estinien is Terrified Krile Saw via Echo [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1492565
Comments: 8
Kudos: 84





	Hesitate

**Author's Note:**

> Aymeric POV followed by Estinien POV.
> 
> Riffs on themes and backstory I'm exploring in ["Astral Fire, Umbral Heart."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12599668/chapters/28699292)
> 
> Scenes taken and expanded from both Chapter 64 ["Spirits Within"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12599668/chapters/49558187'>), and Chapter 69 ["Esuna."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12599668/chapters/50030363)

* * *

❅ ☾ ✧ ☽ ❅

The breath Aymeric took was unsteady; his voice caught and cracked. 

“Long before I thought of her in that manner, thoughts of—of _you_ wrung through my blood like a tempest—”

Estinien was watching him, suddenly stone faced. “Thoughts of me in _that manner?”_

Aymeric nodded. “I fear it will consume me, if I never dare to ask it,” he rasped. “If I never dare give it my voice. And so, now I say it.” His face was flushing, hot as a grate full of embers. “I want it to be you, Estinien,” he muttered, well beneath the veil of his breath. “You first. You, before any other—”

Luckily, they were alone. 

_Luckily_, because Estinien shouted loud enough to rattle the weapon latched across his back.

“You want me to _do what?”_

* * *

They stood there, facing each other like they were about to start sparring_._

“Do we—merely—” Aymeric raised his eyebrows in question. He began to unbutton his shirt and grimaced.

Estinien glanced at the door and his face began to crinkle. 

“This is demented,” he was muttering, something hysterical in the back of his voice. He worked at the clasps of his collar. “This, of all the godsforsaken things that could happen_, is the bloody most godsdamned demented of all—_”

Aymeric froze and took a halted breath. “Let us stop, then—”

“_No_,” Estinien grunted, shirt half open, lunging toward him. 

Instead of flinching away, Aymeric flinched forward, and then they were meshed in their well-practiced kiss, lips and teeth and tongues all at once. Hands grappled for the backs of each other’s necks, silver hair and black twined tightly in the gaps of their fingers—

They stumbled across the floor like a couple of swaggering drunkards and collapsed in a heap on the bed. Aymeric scrambled; Estinien writhed. They were tangled in the bedclothes already, stripping each other of their shirts, tossing them aside. Each struggled and fought to overpower the other, certainly a spar of some other kind. 

Estinien pulled back to put an end to their wrangling—stared down at him, breathless. 

“What do you want me to do?”

Aymeric was panting, backbone pressed into the pillows. “I—want you to—” He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. What was it he wanted? What _truly?_ “Would you touch me? However you wish to.”

There was a moment of silence and hesitation. Then a pair of rough hands raked down Aymeric’s chest, dragged to pause at the creases of his hipbones. Aymeric arched into the contact and met Estinien’s dark, forceful gaze—mirrored the gesture—grazed his fingers down the plane of his long, swarthy stomach, following fine silver hair, until his thumbs nudged at the brim of his waistband. 

Estinien’s trousers were tenting, and Aymeric felt emboldened to see how the other reacted. He was not alone in these ungodly desires. Possessed by a surge of sudden _uninhibition_, Aymeric brushed his fingertips across the outline of Estinien’s hidden arousal and the latter sucked a breath through his teeth. 

_“Let me do the touching,”_ Estinien hissed, and in a movement far bolder, he unfastened Aymeric’s slacks; dipped his palm down the front of them. 

Estinien touched him, and Aymeric went molten_. _That strong, callused grip closed into a fist, tugging firm but loosely to the tip, and every pulse of his blood was on fire.

A sharp haze of lust descended on his mind. The world became a blur. Aymeric jerked his hips wantonly and moaned; lurched against the bedding. He was made of sweat and heavy breathing, dark and painful yearning, every fleck of his existence narrowed down to the touch of that hard, efficient hand. 

“Estinien,” he groaned. “Kiss me.”

Lips met again and tongues entwined and Estinien stroked him, very resolutely. 

“What else,” Estinien breathed into his mouth.

_Halone, _Aymeric was somehow on the edge already. “You tell me,” he panted, voice cracking.

Estinien flung open the front of his own trousers. He hunched above him, free hand wrapped around the swell of his answering sin, working fiercely. He hissed, and then his breath was hot against Aymeric’s lips again. 

“I want to taste you,” Estinien grunted. “Might I taste you?”

“Yes,” Aymeric gasped, and then the other was dipping down between his legs.

In no way was Aymeric prepared for the feeling of Estinien’s _mouth_. He choked on a shout. It was hot and unholy and _by all that was hallowed, _it was _Estinien making him feel this—_

Aymeric plummeted over the threshold; felt himself tensing._ “Estinien—”_

Even his voice sounded wanton—

He tipped into oblivion.

* * *

✧ ☾ ❅ ☽ ✧

Estinien swallowed the alkaline sacrament and took a rough breath.

His throat was raw, his air coming hard—harder, in fact, than he liked to _admit_—

But his Bastard was sprawled there beneath him. His Keeper was shuddering and spent.

Body wracked with tremors, Aymeric panted, beautiful face tossed to the side, mouth buried in the duvet, black hair mussed in a halo. Shameless and flawless and helpless.

Something roared like an inferno from the depths of Estinien’s chest.

This one is _mine._

_Mine, mine, mine—_

He wiped his chin with the hand not clutching his aching arousal; trembled as he sank back on his heels. His shins pressed into the folds of the bedclothes. The bitterness of Aymeric lingered on his lips, stark and acrid, and—_and I—_

I, Estinien, am _his._

A groan caught in his throat. Estinien stroked himself from underside to crown—tugged and thumbed along the stretch of his angles and ridges and bit back an animal howl. 

He was not timid. Never had been. 

But unexpectedly, now, he felt _daunted._

Dare he put it to words—what he suddenly, _vividly_ craved?

To be tamed and claimed, and _claimed again—_

There was a damning quaver of hesitation in the way he stammered the other’s name, but Aymeric rolled his head devoutly to face him. He was flushed, his pale blue eyes so _stunning_. Almond-shaped and narrow, finer than starlight or diamonds. Those eyes scorched him from the inside out. _Damn me down the depths of every hell_—

Estinien wanted to _burn in them forever._

He hunched to press their bodies together. Long, strong arms slid to cling to his waist. The hard, straining curve of him nestled beside the warm, spent softness of Aymeric, and both mouths opened in mirrored gasps. 

He was swept up in attar _Borel_; distillate gentle and clean, quintessence of crisp autumn sunsets. But for all that this closeness made Estinien feel _blessed,_ the wintry stare that bound him was _scalding_. He was purged by blue and blazing hellfire—by the flush of Aymeric’s skin, so _inviting_—

A fresh surge of blood pulsed low in his pelvis and Estinien grunted. They were locked by the eyes, crushed by the lips, sloppy and suddenly dreadfully _starving_. Aymeric moaned at the touch of the tongue that sought him, surely tasting whatever remained there of himself. 

The sounds he made were _obscene_. 

Every ilm of Estinien prickled to life, _excruciating. _The very tips of his ears throbbed as he pinned the other beneath him, the coverlet cradling his hallowed quarry in crinkled tufts. 

“What now,” Estinien pled, his voice stripped, _famished_.

Aymeric took a thin breath. 

His cheeks were dusted pink, eyes hooded, veiled by those long dark lashes—

_Fury run me through before I wither and perish._

Aymeric reddened rosier; swallowed hard. “What do you desire?”

The time had come to invite it, to chase whatever yearnings stirred sinfully within. Estinien loitered at the threshold, skin on tempting skin. He knew not what manner of chasm he was crossing. Still, he prepared to dive and tumble regardless, for one thing was certain yet again:

_I have not the strength to stop this. _

“You,” he grunted, dragging their lips together. “’Tis you I desire.” 

His spine tensed as Aymeric snuck his unsteady fingers between them; wrapped his palm to grasp the aching reach of Estinien’s longing incarnate. The Bastard breathed a sweet and spellbinding sigh. His pale eyes were aflame as he stroked the Urchin, end to tender end.

“How?”

Estinien’s back arched and he groaned, far more loudly than intended. The words came out like he was begging, like he was a groveling, slavering wretch— “However you will have me—”

Aymeric visibly shivered. His air hitched. He dragged his nose along Estinien’s jawbone and took a ragged breath. “Let me give you pleasure,” Aymeric rasped, hoarse and husky, the specter of something wicked at the fringe of his voice. “Let me repay the favor.”

_Halone smite it—_

Estinien’s hips jerked in need and reflex. 

His throat was almost too dry to speak. He wet his lips as he went up in smoke; stammered in lieu of riposte, the word a brittle flake of ash. “Repay—?”

Aymeric moved to look at him. Black lashes parted to reveal a gaze of glittering sky and stardust, flicking up to inspect him. A pale and fragile promise was swelling, a wave of candid impulse crashing—something neither one of them dared before to indulge or imagine—

“Lean back,” Aymeric commanded.

Estinien took a long, slow lungful, and did as he was told. 

Propped on his elbows, his spine was tucked against a pile of bedding. For a moment he could do nothing but stare—breathe through parted lips as the crux of him was pumped in the clasp of Aymeric’s hand—watch in stupefaction as the person he held dearest in the realm of the living moved to kneel keenly between his legs. “Allow me to—taste you?”

_By all that was holy—_

Estinien’s voice was a dust of slag and embers, charcoal catching in his mouth. 

“Aye,” he managed. And Aymeric was bending, leaning over; and curls of raven hair were tickling his hips as those full, faultless lips opened and closed down _around him._

Estinien gasped in shock, gently flexing _up_. Aymeric took an ilm and then another, mouth and tongue and hand in tandem, and _Fury_—a rumble of worship rolled through the bones of the Hound. His meek and mild Master flushed hot and then hotter, watching through half-lidded eyes. 

Beyond the haze of plunging, of _sinking_, something gnashed in Estinien’s chest. He was ashamed of the way he ached to bury his fingers in that glossy rook-dark mane and _rut._ He took a thick breath instead; tried to drown the feelings that were rising in a multitude of facets.

Ache and unbending _adoration_, fealty and _dogged devotion—_

_By all the gods and all the hells—_

Estinien knew that Aymeric could see it, the _sentiment _writ in agony across his face. Surely he could _feel it_, in every hungry thrum of his essence, the blood that surged and ebbed with every stutter of his heart—_taste it,_ in the pulse that gorged his weak and all-too-animal flesh—

_Love, soul and body._

He was caged by Aymeric, hotly and wholly. 

He was _wanted by him that he wanted._

Time and sense and reason ceased to exist. Every nerve was on fire and numb all at once. His eyes blurred and unfocused and the world around them might well have vanished. He was nothing. He was _immaterial_. He was a dusky and glittering abyss, hollow but for Aymeric_._

_Aymeric, Aymeric_, sang his soul in haunting refrain.

“Aymeric,” Estinien hissed. His scarred fingers grappled inky hair, his greedy hips arcing, curving, up and _up. _A groan of bliss rattled through his eager captor’s throat. Tongue laced around him, lips snagged to pull and sup and unswervingly _devour_—

Estinien’s body flinched and jolted. Everything was tangled, and none of it mattered.

Urge became wild emotion; lust gone molten, divine and consecrated—

_Every ilm of his heart—_

Thunder, smoking and broken. 

“All slagging seven and_ Twelve—_”

And Estinien was emptied, drained until he trembled. His hips jerked and he croaked; choked on the urge to whine and to whimper. “_Aymeric_,” he moaned, shuddering coarsely, sucked bone dry. 

_Mercy—_

Released. 

Mouth pressed there where he was spent and swiftly dwindling; kisses blazed up the slope of his groin by soft, swollen lips. 

Aymeric, eyes full of veneration, tracing the lines of his wiry frame. Aymeric, whispering something fond and sordid, voice gone gruff from his exertions, and Estinien—

Estinien felt a chill in his spine.

He slowly shrank away; folded himself against the headboard.

Something like regret coiled in the pit of his stomach. 

There was a moment of silence as Aymeric watched him, still love-drunk. Slowly, carefully, he absorbed the fresh emotions in Estinien's expression. Lover, comrade, closest companion—

_Terror, tribulation, trepidation—_

His blood felt raw and feral—his heart, desperately _unfilled_. 

_What fresh hell consumed him now?_

Estinien knew he should say something, but the words crumbled in his throat. 

Tension itched in the air. 

The hush between them dragged longer, _heavier,_ and Aymeric swiped his tongue across his lips—took a cautious, tremulous breath.

There was no room to think as Estinien made to _escape—_as he yanked up his sweat-dampened trousers—as he hunched from the mattress, feeling unworthy and damaged and _sullen._

He shoved his tousled hair from his face while he tried to calm the racing of his heart. 

* * *

Aymeric begged him to stay, to talk it all out.

Estinien knew his face was stony as he told him _no_, tense from temple to toe.

_Go, go, go—_

Something dull in the other’s expression; something bitter and unbearably vacant.

Aymeric begged to know how he felt. Estinien willed himself colder, more distant. “I lack the words,” he lied.

“I am certain you do not—”

“I did as you requested.” _You would not understand._ The feelings curdled in his mouth. 

_You are far too soft to understand me, Aymeric._

For his sake, Estinien hoped he heeded the warning. Hoped, beyond hope, as he left—

Prayed that Aymeric ceased his adamant struggles—

Would that he had ceased them, before they began.

❅ ☽ ✧ ☾ ❅

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Estinien is a mess.


End file.
